January 12

Posted on Jan 12, 2018

Mel Trotter, who founded 66 rescue missions in key cities across the U.S., wrote: “I didn’t get a very good start in the first place; my job was tending bar in my father’s saloon. Booze got the best of me pretty early in life, and before I was twenty years old I was the common drunkard of our town.” Things went from bad to worse. “God gave us only one baby. When the little fellow was hardly two years old, one day after a ten-day’s drunk, I went to find my wife in our cold, bare home, if you can call it a home, and found our boy dead in his mother’s arms.” Trotter determined to end his life. Making his way to Chicago’s Lake Michigan shore to throw himself in, he felt the hand of Tom, a former card sharp who was standing in front of the Pacific Garden Mission. He shepherded him into the mission where Mel heard the story of the Savior’s love. Mel never left Skid Row. He spent his life reaching out to others who found hope when they thought there was none left.